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AEC Student, Emily Miller, Starts Squishy Empire!

Last year, when attending a freshmen Startup Incubator class, AEC sophomore Emily Miller, designed a small game app in GameSalad. From that, Emily created, in Adobe Illustrator, an adorable unicorn character. At the same time, Emily was building an Instagram following (around 1000 followers) for a "Squishy" profile and shop. She flipped valuable squishies for profit in order to build seed funds for a forthcoming venture.

Now a sophomore, Emily sent her unicorn design to a manufacturer based in China, and using those seed funds, had it manufactured as a 3D squishy. Emily also designed the packaging to go along with it. Emily also formed a business entity and has her own LLC in Nevada. And BTW.... the unicorn squishy is scented, like peaches!

She is now selling those squishies online, via her Instagram site with now over 11,500 followers. Within 3 days, she sold 160 squishies and they are being sold in stores worldwide in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom.

The Starup Incubator teaches our students that design thinking is part art and part engineering, consisting of a cyclical process of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing solutions to identified problems or needs. Emily established a design on want and need, then produced a prototype based on her creative squishy design. Through facilities, instruction, collaboration, mentorship and partnership, Emily has the tools she needs to engage in an entrepreneurial venture, developing a lean startup, to bring her original work to market. We are very proud!

If you are interested in buying, they are $15 each. You can contact her via instagram @squishy.usa or through email: emilymiller111@gmail.com. She’d be happy to deliver them at school!